SHOUTING DISTANCE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
To kick off the new year, here's a freebie for you from my book Last Tango In Timbuktu  

The rain came before sunrise
in steady sheets
like the one I was trying
to pull over my head

I was just out of a dream
where I was whispering into the ear
of a woman who seemed to be
 my counselor
or confidante
a dream where I had speculated about
the sex of a pencil

It was long
a real woody
and it could prick you
when it's sharp
no wait...erase that

It was worn 
past the last hurrah
like a space ship
in the shape of a cigar

(And when hers was worn down to the nubbin
Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven)

It made so much sense to say
that I am my brother's keeper
but of course the other side had just claimed
that we'll get you to the promised land
in just a little different way

Let us fly and make our own mistakes
don't need a hand or a handout
of course that's the way where
crash and burn
 is followed in sequence by
oh shit
oh well

The rain had no intention
of letting up
as dawn's curtain lifted slowly
the new year now within shouting distance

And in the dream I was giddy
as I breathed into her ear
that I didn't know whether to laugh
or to cry

The culmination of a lifetime
of fledgling flight

Don't be concerned
if I crash and burn